The real mistake was lying about it
Originally appeared on spirituality.com
I was faced with an ethical dilemma: is honesty always the best policy? And this one had a particularly personal twist: should I lie to protect my husband's job?
My husband Rob and I had been working together for nearly a year and a half. I was responsible for overseeing his work. One day, we got an email from a furious client—Rob had made an error in his work, and I hadn’t noticed it. We had to let our boss know what had happened, but I was sure if I told her it was Rob’s mistake, she would fire him.
Although I have always been an honest person, this time I panicked. Instead of being honest, I told my boss that I made the mistake. Rob went along with this, because he thought I would be in trouble for not discovering the error. He was trying to protect me! My boss was supportive, but I felt guilty about lying to her. I even began to feel ill.
I started to think more deeply about everything I knew about God. First in importance was the fact that God is Love. I also knew that God is completely good and only has good in store for everyone. I thought about good being everywhere, in my home, in my town, in the whole universe.Whenever I have had to deal with challenges, I've always turned to God. So I turned to divine Love for peace and direction. I picked up my Bible and it opened at a page that talked about what happens when one speaks with a deceitful tongue. Wow. This really struck me—I hadn’t meant to deceive anyone, but I did. And because I like to think of myself as honest, this was a big wake-up call.
I spoke to a friend who reminded me that no one can truly suffer from choosing to be honest. I also remembered this passage from Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health: “Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help” (453:16-17 ).
I felt so inspired about how wonderful divine Love is that I stopped worrying about what would happen if I told my boss the truth, so I contacted her.I certainly didn’t want to forfeit divine help—I needed all the help I could get! I realized that prayer affirming what is true about God would help me. As God’s child, I express what God is. So if I wanted to experience the good that God had in store for me, I couldn’t hold on to the idea that I could suffer from being honest.
She was really unhappy about the situation. Since she felt Rob had lied to her too, she fired him.
So now not only had he lost his job, but he also felt betrayed by me. I could understand how he felt, and I prayed about this, too. I knew that God knew my heart, that I loved God dearly and that we could only benefit from being honest. I refused to let in any opposite thoughts.
This wasn’t easy, but if I wanted to experience God’s goodness, I had to accept that goodness was all God had in store for us.
A few days went by, and then, very unexpectedly, we were both offered jobs teaching English on an island off China. The job offer inspired us, and we began to see that God always has a perfect plan for us—and for everyone—and that a mistake couldn’t limit our opportunities. The job in China wouldn't start for six months, and I had to complete a contract in my present job, so Rob began looking for work.
One day, as he was praying, he was inspired to go back into financing, a field in which he had lots of experience. He phoned an acquaintance to discuss renewing his qualifications, and this man offered him a job. Rob is now using his talents to help people.
What's more, Rob and I became a lot closer as a result of this experience. I believe that's because we were dealing with the situation through prayer, rather than just humanly willing for it to work out.
We’re still praying to know whether or not to go to China. What we do know, however, is that God only has good in store for us, and we can never suffer from being honest. This is God’s law of love, and Her goodness is for everyone, everywhere!
Thoughts on dishonesty:
Science and Health
357:7-9
King James Bible
Ps 120:1-3
Prov 20:17